Post Christmas Thoughts

As you may already know, I'm quite the lazy blogger. My life is generally uneventful and mostly drama free; which is exactly the way I like it.

Spencer decorated the outside of the house for Christmas with large ornaments that hang from our front porch. There are also ribbons and bells on the posts. It looks very cute and festive.

Before Christmas, he took a week off work where we spent most of those days at home preparing for the upcoming drive to southern Ohio to visit relatives. I had a wonderful time wrapping gifts while listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

The visit went well. It was as quiet and relaxing as being in our own home, only in a far nicer home. On Christmas Eve, I did tear up when asked to recall a favorite Christmas memory. As I thought of my mom and grandma from Christmases long ago, the overwhelming feeling of loss came over me as I tried to choke out the words to my audience of compassionate listeners.

Understandingly, my polite in laws offered me a box of tissues, a pat on the back, and went forth to the next person asking for a favorite Christmas memory as I sat quietly composing myself and trying so very hard NOT to blow my nose too loud.

Christmas morning was light and happy with a breakfast casserole and glowing faces around the table. My niece was especially eager to open gifts, and we adults were all to eager to keep her squirming as we lingered over coffee.

The gift giving in this family is far more ceremonial than the explosive unwrap-it-as-fast-as-you-can times of my childhood. This ceremony took me a few years to master when I was still new to my husband's family.

A person is designated to hand out a few gifts until we all have something to open. Someone is chosen to start, and we all watch as this person oh so carefully, unwraps the gift and shows it for all to see. Only after my first Christmas with my new family, did I realize that wrapping paper is NOT to be torn and opened like a pack of wolves at a kill. The paper, if silently deemed to be "of quality", is opened with great care so it can be reused again the next year. Or more.

The quiet and polite giving of the gifts and unwrapping continues until they are all opened with each person placing reusable paper and bags placed neatly into piles by his/her side. Even the ribbons are kept for reuse. Now, with this artistic family, there are also fabric gift bags that are not meant to be kept. They are given back unless specifically told "you can keep that", which is not often.

Even with this "unusual to me" pomp and circumstance, all the gifts I had carefully chosen were well received by my in laws. Even down to the fish scale nail files that my husband was certain would make his mother and sister recoil in horror. Much to our surprise, it seems, my mother in law had owned one of these fish scale nail files years ago and was more than pleased to receive a new one.

I do think the best part was when my niece took her Christmas Around the World pop-up book, and hugged it tightly to her chest. I knew then, we had chosen a cherished gift for her this year.

Later that afternoon, Spencer and I departed for the three-hour drive back home. Once home and settled in, we put on some Christmas music and exchanged our gifts. Salvador was especially happy that our niece had sent home a gift for him. He opened the package, very impolitely, and demanded some of the new catnip. Of course, we complied, being the doting staff that we are.

So with a happy happy heart, I bid you all a very Merry After Christmas, and do hope 2010 is a wonderful and productive year for you.